How Do You Make Your People Pee?

“One organisational touchpoint often gets mysteriously overlooked: the bathroom. Most office restrooms are bleak and unwelcoming. But for many employees, it’s one of the few opportunities they have for stepping away, letting go of trivial details and refocusing on the bigger picture. Instead of treating bathrooms with disdain, some cutting-edge organisations are now using them as an opportunity for stimulating creativity, by displaying interesting artwork, leaving out thought-provoking magazines or playing unusual music.

At Google, for example, bathrooms are where employees go to learn. Back in 2007, a group of engineers started posting interesting articles on the bathroom stalls as a means of educating their colleagues about new methods of code testing. Their idea caught on and soon their coworkers began complaining when the material wasn’t being updated quickly enough. To this day, when an engineer at Google says: “Excuse me I need to go read about testing” its clear exactly where they’re going. On the surface, this might look like just a quirky anecdote. But what it demonstrates is how even a simple bathroom visit can be used to reinforce a company commitment to intellectual growth.”